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Friday, June 21, 2013

How Many Screenwriters Does It Take to Write a Zombie Movie?

This weekend's big release is WORLD WAR Z, based on the bestselling book by Max Brooks, son of comedy legend Mel Brooks (Blazing Saddles, The Producers). The epistolary novel consists of a collection of interviews with survivors of a zombie apocalypse ten years after the outbreak and, therefore, doesn't follow a traditional narrative.

On WWZ, Straczynski has only a shared screen-story credit -- with Matthew Michael Carnahan, who rewrote the screenplay and retains a co-screenplay credit. Carnahan's other work includes the screenplays for Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs and Peter Berg's The Kingdom, both released in 2007. He is the brother of Joe Carnahan, who wrote and directed Narc, The A-Team, and Smokin' Aces.

After principal photography on WWZ was completed, Damon Lindelof was hired to rewrite the film's third act. About a half hour of footage would need to be re-shot over seven weeks to make the ending more coherent. The co-creator of Lost ultimately was unable to finish fixing the ending, leaving the project favor of trying to fix Ridley Scott's Prometheus and co-write last month's blockbuster Star Trek Into Darkness, currently still in theatres.

Opening today on more than 3,600 screens, Brad Pitt and a shitload of zombies star in World War Z, based on the book by Max Brooks with a screen story adapted by J. Michael Straczynski and Matthew Michael Carnahan and a screenplay by Matthew Michael Carnahan and Damon Lindelof & Drew Goddard.

Trivia: The author's dad, funnyman Mel Brooks, also executive-produced a series of acclaimed dramas in the 1980s under his Brooksfilms banner, including The Elephant Man, Frances, and the 1986 remake of The Fly.